Sony: Internet video service on hold due to Comcast data cap

Exempting its video services from its data cap makes companies wary of Comcast.

An executive from Sony said Monday that concerns about Comcast's discriminatory data cap are giving the firm second thoughts about launching an Internet video service that would compete with cable and satellite TV services. In March, Comcast announced that video streamed to the Xbox from Comcast's own video service would be exempted from the cable giant's 250 GB monthly bandwidth cap.

Sony's Michael Aragon was speaking at the Variety Entertainment and Technology Summit. Aragon reportedly said Sony was "waiting on clarity" about whether regulators would allow Comcast to exempt its own video services from the broadband cap.

"These guys have the pipe and the bandwidth," he said. "If they start capping things, it gets difficult."

Comcast controls more than 20 percent of the residential broadband market, which means that Comcast effectively controls access to one-fifth of any American Internet video service's potential customers. Given that Comcast is in the video business itself, the risk to would-be competitors is obvious. Indeed, Comcast itself has estimated that replacing its own video service with an Internet video alternative would require more than 250GB of bandwidth.

Timothy B. Lee
Timothy covers tech policy for Ars, with a particular focus on patent and copyright law, privacy, free speech, and open government. His writing has appeared in Slate, Reason, Wired, and the New York Times. Emailtimothy.lee@arstechnica.com//Twitter@binarybits

I went with Comcast Business. Higher prices, sure. Related to my business, yes. But no bandwidth caps at all and you deal with totally different people. It's like a different company that just happens to have "Comcast" in it's name.

I was shocked as I vowed I'd never go back to Comcast. But then AT&T's DSL started sucking more and more and their data-cap was 150gigs a month and I was going beyond that all the time, do to online backups of my photography business using Carbonite and dropbox. Not to mention using Netflix all the time.

Exactly. Perhaps it's a bit naive on my part, but I don't see how this hasn't been determined to be anti-consumer. Hopefully the DoJ is building a case right now. I honestly don't really know why content providers were ever allowed to mingle into the market of bandwidth/service providers.

Exactly. Perhaps it's a bit naive on my part, but I don't see how this hasn't been determined to be anti-consumer. Hopefully the DoJ is building a case right now. I honestly don't really know why content providers were ever allowed to mingle into the market of bandwidth/service providers.

It leaves us, as customers, little recourse as most ISPs now are also content providers.

I feel like we are seeing more clearly why allowing Comcast to buy NBC was a bad idea.

They control content and bandwidth and seem to be leveraging this to their clear advantage. The data cap/ exempting their own service and the recent rumors about Hulu ditching the free-to-all options (of which Comcast/NBC is a partner in) seems unfortunate for the consumer.

Sadly, we're turning into the same thing up in Canada. All the major TV stations are now owned by our telcos and ISP's. Want to stream that TV episode you missed that aired on Bell's CTV? Either subscribe to Bell or subscribe to the CTV app for $5.99.

Sadly, the answer to every single effort by Big Media, is Torrent. They simply have to make enjoying their product the most painful experience possible.

I agree with the comments about Comcast Business Class. It is like dealing with a totally different company.

Those of us in the Philadelphia region have seen Comcast play its games like the one with video content before. Some years ago Comcast bought an interest in the Philadelphia Flyers, and also bought the old Philly PRISM sports channel, turning it into Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia. PRISM was a microwave, not a satellite service. Comcast made the decision to keep the old infrastructure when it was certainly within their means to upgrade to satellite delivery. The reason for doing that? Not to save money, but to shut out anyone who chose to get their television service from DirecTV or Dish Network and force viewers in the region who were Philly sports fans to subscribe to cable. Comcast Sports Net Philadelphia is the only regional sports net that is unavailable on satellite, to my knowledge. What they are doing now with competing video suppliers is the same sort of thing.

This is why we need to be electing officials who have a sound technical understanding, or at least make sure we don't have plebs on the committees that control this stuff. Series of tubes? Yeah, its those guys making these laws....

Monopolies such as this need to stop. Finally breaking Comcast's monopoly here in Chattanooga, TN and building out municipal fiber has been a win/win for consumers. With the revolution in technology and information data should now be treated as a utility. At the very least open the pipes to competition.

Now, there are different ways to gauge data usage as a utility I know, but EPB (electric power board) here in Chattanooga just flat rates a speed tier. For example I lost internet services last year due to last April's tornado outbreak and EPB prorated my bill for the couple day's it was down. Pipe wasn't up for the full month? Don't pay for the full month. That easy, didn't even have to ask as they sent a letter explaining everything. Let's see Comcast and it's ilk serve the community that way.

It's great when regulatory capture gives us wonderful presents like this. Don't worry you can always just switch to some other high speed internet provider. Oh wait....

Regulatory capture is a problem, but unregulated markets are worse. The basic elements to ensure competition among telecoms-- common carrier doctrines and (more recently) net neutrality will never occur in an unregulated market. I want a highly competitive, open telecoms market-- which is why I want more regulation.

That's not a hard cap. Friend of mine blows it away monthly with no repercussions for years. But I suppose they're leaving the option to enforce it sometime in the future wide open.

It is a "quasi" hard cap. They'll let you go over it once in a while, but if you are consistently going over by a large amount, you will get a phone call. At least now they tell you what the cap is. A few years ago when I received my call (before switching to their Business Class, which in my area is slightly more expensive, but faster and they give you Norton Business Suite for free) the guy who called me would not tell me what the amount was that they considered "excessive usage," just that I needed to use less.

I went with Comcast Business. Higher prices, sure. Related to my business, yes. But no bandwidth caps at all and you deal with totally different people. It's like a different company that just happens to have "Comcast" in it's name.

I was shocked as I vowed I'd never go back to Comcast. But then AT&T's DSL started sucking more and more and their data-cap was 150gigs a month and I was going beyond that all the time, do to online backups of my photography business using Carbonite and dropbox. Not to mention using Netflix all the time.

I also like Comcast's business service a lot more than I expected. The lower tiers are not much more expensive than the residential service, and you get a completely different department dealing with your account. I routinely push 1TB/mo and they never complain (this after disconnecting my residential service for bandwidth overages).

This is why we need to be electing officials who have a sound technical understanding, or at least make sure we don't have plebs on the committees that control this stuff. Series of tubes? Yeah, its those guys making these laws....

I've been running for a Congressional seat since March. It ain't fun and as it turns out, nobody cares about tech issues. It's infuriating seeing our current crop of representatives flushing innovation down the toilet with ill-conceived bills.

Sony is FOS. So, they act like Comcast is the only ISP out there and use them as the reason not to offer such a service. How about they just don't have the balls to compete with Netflix or Amazon Prime or other existing services that are working just fine (and making a profit at it).

And so the United States falls farther behind in tech innovation and equality while the politicians try to protect the 'job creators' that are splitting our economy into legal monopolies, strangling small businesses and the middle class alike while shipping every job they can overseas.

Gee, how can the rich be getting richer when we cut everyone's taxes and de-regulate the corporations they own?

It's like a mystery, but I'm sure Romney will explain it all in easy to use small words. Because regional monopolies with high prices for poor service and poor infrastructure and lagging technology and the rich getting richer is better for everyone, not just Romney and his friends. They're doing us a favor, really, raising our prices.

Sony is FOS. So, they act like Comcast is the only ISP out there and use them as the reason not to offer such a service. How about they just don't have the balls to compete with Netflix or Amazon Prime or other existing services that are working just fine (and making a profit at it).

Sony is a sinking ship.

It IS the only ISP for most of their customers. It's a crooked arrangment, where a cartel of cable internet providers have regional monopolies. I can only choose Time Warner ... or Time Warner.

Regulatory capture is a problem, but unregulated markets are worse. The basic elements to ensure competition among telecoms-- common carrier doctrines and (more recently) net neutrality will never occur in an unregulated market. I want a highly competitive, open telecoms market-- which is why I want more regulation.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. I just don't want the regulation to be written by corporate lobbyists. The acquisition of NBC/Universal should never been allowed but Comcast had the right people in the right places to make it happen.

It's great when regulatory capture gives us wonderful presents like this. Don't worry you can always just switch to some other high speed internet provider. Oh wait....

Regulatory capture is a problem, but unregulated markets are worse. The basic elements to ensure competition among telecoms-- common carrier doctrines and (more recently) net neutrality will never occur in an unregulated market. I want a highly competitive, open telecoms market-- which is why I want more regulation.

Hear, hear.

The entire communications infrastructure needs to be nationalized and then any company that wants to use it pays to get in. Need to service a 20 mile radius of Somewhere, Montana? Pay $X, with a portion going toward maintaining infrastructure. Need to service 30 states and 60 million customers? Pay $XXXXXXX.

Once lines aren't artificially owned( it's true. the tax breaks and subsidies the current "owners" have made these practically free ), and all players can get in, competition will blossom.

Cable TV is a business with a very high price of entry where multiple cable TV companies serving each house made no sense. That's why cable TV franchises were awarded to a single company per area. For a franchise fee, cable companies were given the gift of a competitorless, monopoly business by the local governments.

Because they were awarded a monopoly in their area, they must be heavily regulated. With the advent of internet service over the infrastructure paid for by their monopoly franchise revenues, this internet service must also be highly regulated. As others have said, if ISPs can't treat competitive services the same as their own services, it's time for content and wires to be broken up.

VOD and other options to stream current TV content that subscribers have access to as part of their basic cable service, I agree, that could readily be piped seperately, but if it is, it shoudl also be completely independent of ANY requirements to even HAVE an ISP (aka, it shoudl work over comcast's own lines, even if you do not subscribe to an ISP at all, and at no extra carge, this is how TWC and uVerse do it).

If it's traveling over IP, or contains back-catalog or other content, or comes as an additional subscription, it must count against any cap a carrier imposes, period. Anything less is anti-competitive and directly in ciolation of the FCC's NN rules.

I think the Comcast cap is enforced by region. Some regions it is a hard cap, and they even have an online tool to show you how close you are to that cap. This tool, and statement of the 250G cap, doesn't even show up on their site if you are in other Comcast regions.

That doesn't mean that there isn't an informal cap in these other areas.

Regulatory capture is a problem, but unregulated markets are worse. The basic elements to ensure competition among telecoms-- common carrier doctrines and (more recently) net neutrality will never occur in an unregulated market. I want a highly competitive, open telecoms market-- which is why I want more regulation.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. I just don't want the regulation to be written by corporate lobbyists. The acquisition of NBC/Universal should never been allowed but Comcast had the right people in the right places to make it happen.

Hey, that buyout was totally legit. I know this because it was overseen by Meredith Attwell Baker, whose unshakeable code of ethics should be an example to us all.

Just think back not that many years ago, Microsoft got in trouble because they shipped with IE tied to Windows, you didn't have to use it, you could install whatever other browser you liked, they simply shipped with it included. Now look what companies get away with.

Sony is FOS. So, they act like Comcast is the only ISP out there and use them as the reason not to offer such a service. How about they just don't have the balls to compete with Netflix or Amazon Prime or other existing services that are working just fine (and making a profit at it).

Sony is a sinking ship.

Comcast is the only ISP offering IP based TV streaming service to it's customerswhere they are discriminating competition by applying Netflix, Sony, and others to a user's data cap WITHOUT applying their own streaming to that same cap. This is in DIRECT violation of FCC NN rules. If this was a free service run over MOCA, as TWC does, and was limited to on-air content (not back catalogs, movies, etc), and ran completely independent of even HAVING an ISP, then it would not be anticompetitive, but because this is an IP based system, they are invalidly providing "unlimited free use" to ISP customers by offering to bypass their caps for use of their fee based service in place of the competition, a deal competition cannot similarly negotiate.

That is why NN was passed. This is why Comcast fought it. EXACTLY this type of behavior is what we seek to prevent. Comcast is essentially saying, with their cap, you can have Netflix, but your use of it would be limited, so pick (and pay) us instead... Since they own the network, that is now illegal to do, and they did it anyway. Sony is absolutely right to make this public stance. It PROVES that comcast is directly effecting the competitive landscape by providing themxelves with advantages on a federally regulated network that the competition is not able to have.

Cable TV is a business with a very high price of entry where multiple cable TV companies serving each house made no sense. That's why cable TV franchises were awarded to a single company per area. For a franchise fee, cable companies were given the gift of a competitorless, monopoly business by the local governments.

Because they were awarded a monopoly in their area, they must be heavily regulated. With the advent of internet service over the infrastructure paid for by their monopoly franchise revenues, this internet service must also be highly regulated. As others have said, if ISPs can't treat competitive services the same as their own services, it's time for content and wires to be broken up.

Yeah but today you can have multiple companies severing each household thus we must change the law and rules over it because its stagnating the market.

I'm afraid that one of the barriers this time might be the lack of understanding of internet infrastructure whereas telephone infrastructure had been around for 50 years leading up to '84, and everyone could relate to using the phone.. not so easy these days when people -including lawmakers- use google to find a site vs. typing the URL directly in the location bar, and think the IE icon IS the internet

i have long been of the opinion that internet access should be considered "critical" infrastructure similar to a basic land-line, or broadcast tv and radio. my local telco MUST provide a land line to me for dirt cheap (less than $20/month).. but I have to qualify. the FCC reserves the right to take over OTA broadcasts in the event of an emergency via the Emergency Broadcast System.

That's not a hard cap. Friend of mine blows it away monthly with no repercussions for years. But I suppose they're leaving the option to enforce it sometime in the future wide open.

Maybe it's a region thing... Two of my coworkers were dropped by Comcast for exceeding the cap... I myself, saw degraded service each month I went past the cap... Not sure if it's related or coincidence, but I have since switched to FiOS, and haven't looked back or had any problems.

A senior Sony executive has said that Comcast's policy of exempting its own video services from its 250GB bandwidth cap has made Sony reluctant to introduce its own Internet video service. Netflix has also criticized Comcast's policy.

Read the whole story

It's a legitimate concern. I am a relatively light user of Netflix and iTunes on AppleTV and I use about 90 GB per month. Since they increased the resolution to 1080p my bandwidth usage went up to about 180 GB per month. Obviously I could reduce resolution but that wouldn't be ideal.

I'm afraid that one of the barriers this time might be the lack of understanding of internet infrastructure whereas telephone infrastructure had been around for 50 years leading up to '84, and everyone could relate to using the phone.. not so easy these days when people -including lawmakers- use google to find a site vs. typing the URL directly in the location bar, and think the IE icon IS the internet

i have long been of the opinion that internet access should be considered "critical" infrastructure similar to a basic land-line, or broadcast tv and radio. my local telco MUST provide a land line to me for dirt cheap (less than $20/month).. but I have to qualify. the FCC reserves the right to take over OTA broadcasts in the event of an emergency via the Emergency Broadcast System.

The deregulation helped for a short period of times as small CLEC's popped up. But now, most of those were fighting in a "dog eat dog under the king's table" fashion, and only a few, strong ones have survived the a) competition with each other, b) the competition with the big boys. In some cases, all the small company is doing is reselling the big company's service. The way the big company skirts around the CLEC threat is to just keep raising the rates on the small guy every time contract negotiations come around.

But, deregulation of the 80's became moot when ISP and wireless became the top dogs instead of landline services. ISP and Wireless are not regulated as heavily by the FCC, and the big companies push and push as hard as they can to exploit the fact while just barely not pushing enough to make the FCC take real action to crack down. They're like a kid constnatly putting their foot over a line, then back, then over, then back, constantly testing the waters. But, each time they test the waters, and are not called on the BS they pull, what the FCC doesn't realize is complacency just makes them bolder. So, the big telco's, while testing that line, are sort of picking it up and pushing it further each time they do so.

I feel like we are seeing more clearly why allowing Comcast to buy NBC was a bad idea.

They control content and bandwidth and seem to be leveraging this to their clear advantage. The data cap/ exempting their own service and the recent rumors about Hulu ditching the free-to-all options (of which Comcast/NBC is a partner in) seems unfortunate for the consumer.

Nobody except Comcast thought that merger was a good idea. They must have spent a lot of money buying off people for it to pass.